Sts. Mary and Elizabeth Hospital Works to Prevent Future Flood Damage

by scrosby on November 9, 2009

A one-year project is underway at Sts. Mary and Elizabeth Hospital to avoid a shutdown in the event of another flood. During the August 4 disaster, some 200 patients had to be moved to other hospitals and some parts of the facility were closed for a month because of damage to the its infrastructure.

Vice-President of Facilities, Development and Engineering Steve French says the building was rendered useless in some areas because equipment like boilers and generators were damaged.

“So we’re relocating some services and equipment to a plant on the outside of the building and we’re going to elevate that plant so that should that water from Mill Creek rise again, it should not have this effect on the hospital,” says French.

He says they don’t yet have a firm cost on the project. Officials are hoping to pay for it with a combination of insurance money, FEMA aid and energy grants.